Perseus nudged his rested horse. They left the dead tree behind, carefully tracking the owl's path. From time to time it would pause and circle overhead to make sure the animate dots on the hot earth below were still following.
They crossed over the rise and down into the desolate valley, but did not continue straight across the barren plain. After an hour's journey they were directed to turn sharply to their left. The new path led down a narrow wadi. Towering walls of gray and yellow stone rose high above them. The sides of the little canyon soon grew so narrow that the horsemen had to make their way forward in single file.
Occasionally one of the horses would start and utter an uneasy whinny, yet anxious glances to left and right always found only bare stone blotched by an isolated clump of desert scrub.
A warm fog began to rise about them, issuing from cracks in the rock. Perseus placed his hand close to one such opening, only to draw it back hurriedly.
"This rock is on fire!"
"Not on fire, my boy," Ammon explained patiently. "The heat emerges from below. I have observed such places before, most notably by the famous royal mineral baths at Thebes."
"I didn't know you'd traveled in Aegypt, sir," said Perseus respectfully.
Ammon chuckled. "I've visited many lands, my boy. I finally settled in Joppa because the climate suited me, both in body and in mind. Half of that still applies, and perhaps soon we will be able to help fix the half that's gone sour."
"Where does the heat come from?" asked the interested Andromeda. "Hades?"
He shrugged. "No one knows, my dear. Some would say Hades, yes. Others think elsewhere. I do not pretend to know. I am a poet, not a natural philosopher."
The mist caressed them, writhing about the mounts and their riders; there was an air of mischievous, inimical intelligence about it.
They soon left it behind. Occasionally Perseus would look upward, to see a bright star moving in the sky. It kept just ahead of them, pausing and circling from time to time to let them catch up before continuing on its course. He thought he could hear a reassuring hoot from it
The wadi bent and came to an end which opened onto another, smaller valley ending in a sheer escarpment. Pine trees crowning that far cliff looked short as grass. .
They stopped at the end of the canyon. Across the valley and atop the cliff were the ruins of an ancient temple.
Once it had dominated the cliffs and all the land around it. A vicious prince had ruled from that impregnable fortress, extorting tribute from all who came through his territory. Now the prince and his bandits were less than memory, their wealth availing them nothing.
The valley was soon crossed. Bubo was waiting for them, perched on a sharp spear of stone, a perch less likely to crumble rudely beneath him. The riders dismounted and surveyed their intended destination.
Instead of being discouraged by the dangerous climb ahead, Perseus was overjoyed. The shrine was real, a fact he'd doubted in private. Whether its mysterious, rumored inhabitants actually existed was still a matter for conjecture.
But the shrine, at least, was real.
He embraced Andromeda and then joined his companions in preparing for the ascent. The shield of Hera was strapped securely to his back. From his belt hung the sword of Aphrodite.
"You and Ammon can wait here for us," he told the princess.
"I'm coming with—"
"No, illuminator of eternal love. I think not this time."
"I still command the soldiers of Joppa," she reminded him.
"Then command them wisely, so that they may help and not hinder me. You ride like a dragonfly, my life, but you have not the muscles or experience for a climb such as this. It is best we all look clearly and reasoningly at our individual limits, or disaster will befall us for certain."
He turned and gestured upward. "Tell me truthfully that you believe you can make this climb, and I shall object no more."
She studied the cliff face, the soft sandstone, the narrow ledges, the places where a climber would have to pull himself bodily to the next level by sheer strength. Then she grimaced and looked away.
"I can't. You are right, husband-to-be. I will stay behind."
"Someone has to stay and guard the horses," Ammon told her sympathetically. "That could be as vital to our success as anything else. And poor old man that I am, I could not do it alone." He winked surreptitiously at Perseus.
"Then I will remain," she said firmly to Perseus, "and await your return. Go quickly now, before I forget myself." She kissed him hungrily. The soldiers half turned aside and whispered amusedly.
'I will be quick," he assured her with a warm smile as they separated, "but though you may forget yourself, know that I never could." He turned and started lithely up the rocks.
The two below watched the party ascend. After a while Andromeda casually remarked to her elderly companion, "You have been giving my love lessons in the wiles of a lover's speech."
Ammon shook his head. "Nay, my lady." He squinted as he tried to keep the climbers in focus. "He has not yet the skills of a poet, your Perseus. But he has the heart of one. His words to you come from there, not from any lessons of mine."
They lapsed into silence as they watched the climbers shrink from view.
The climb was no less difficult than the men had expected. The sun hammered the face of the cliff relentlessly, driving strength and water from their bodies.
Fortunately, whenever exhaustion threatened to become total, a wide ledge would suddenly appear, or a cave cut by wind and water into the soft stone, and there they would rest and gather their strength.
Then they would resume the ascent. Near the top the escarpment rounded off somewhat and the going became easier. Unexpectedly, a newly gained ledge turned out to be the crest, and they found themselves standing on the edge of the summit, the rubble of the once-magnificent temple facing them.
Menas peered cautiously inward, sniffed and turned away gagging. "Prince Perseus, I would rather suffer the odor of the slaughterhouse than that which comes from within."
"I think your appraisal not as far off as you might think, Menas. It has the stink of the charnel house all about it. Can you see anything?"
"Nothing."
They moved nearer. Perseus pointed. "There. A light of some kind."
"A fire," suggested Castor.
They entered the ruins, Thallo cautioning all to keep swords and wits at the ready and each man to be aware of his neighbor.
The remnants of the temple were devoid of the magnificence that had once ruled here. The building itself was all that remained. Though cloaked in grease and soot, the columns were unbroken, a tribute to the slave workers who'd raised them. But most of the interior wall was gone, and the faint light reflected not off marble or mosaic but bare rock.
The interior was home to a million rats. They swarmed in front of the stalking men and closed in curiously behind them. Their constant inquisitive chattering sounded like running water in old pipes. They watched the men out of anxious little red eyes. Though they smelled blood they did not try to bite. They knew better. Men could kill.
The time for feasting would come soon enough.
Philo stumbled over something, cursed and kicked it. It ricocheted hollowly off a far wall.
"Not a rock," muttered Thallo, in reaction to his comrade's curse. He pointed with his sword toward the object Philo had kicked. "A human skull."
Menas was bent over, examining the debris which littered the floor to a depth of half a foot in places. "Here's another," he informed them. "And there another. Plenty of other bones, too." He gingerly picked up a hand and forearm, ran a finger along a scored section of ulna. "Gnawed."
He hastily tossed it aside. He was a soldier and he'd seen bones before, but those times the cause of death had always been obvious. He looked over his shoulder toward the entrance. It seemed leagues distant.
The fire Perseus had spotted danced against the far wall. A crumbling mosaic depicting unwholesome rites reflected some of the glo
w back into the center of the temple chamber and provided enough light to see by. Crouched around the flames were three figures. They moved slowly.
Perseus and his companions came forward quietly through the darkness.
The three figures stirred a liquid which bubbled noisily inside an old cauldron. Their hair was long, stringy, and matted with dirt. Clothing no thicker than fog covered skin tough and wrinkled as papyrus. Perseus wondered if those gaunt frames contained any blood. Certainly their stock of humanity was low.
Despite the quiet approach of sandaled feet, the noise soon reached the three sisters. All sniffed at the air. One held a round crystal to her forehead and searched the darkness. The crystal looked very much like an eye.
"Someone coming."
"Sounds like a man," said another. "A young man. Who has the eye?" she asked eagerly.
"I do," announced the third.
"Give it to me."
"No." The witch manipulating the crystal orb moved away, clutching it protectively. "I want to be the first to see him."
"Is he really young?" asked the first witch, more patient than her companions. "Perhaps he's fine and plump. What do you see, sister? Tell us."
"Yes, what do you see?" The other left off her stirring and turned an eyeless face toward the center of the chamber. Behind her the pot continued to bubble.
Perseus moved closer. He'd slipped the shield from his back and now wore it on his left arm. The sword hung ready from his right hand.
"Yes, yes," hissed the witch with the eye. "A young man. Not plump, but well made. Healthy also, by the look of him, and tall."
"Lots of meat on him, sister?" inquired the first witch. She licked her lips noisily. In the dark it sounded like a file working metal.
"Enough for all three of us, sister, if we're none of us too greedy."
"Who's greedy?" snorted the second witch. "Are you calling me greedy?"
"Hush now," the first witch ordered firmly, "lest we frighten our nice young visitor away. We wouldn't want that, would we, sisters?"
The three chuckled softly, waiting. From the corners of the chamber the rats watched expectantly.
Perseus halted well away from them and lifted his sword by way of greeting. "Have no fear, ladies. I come in peace."
"So much the better," said the third witch softly. "Tall you say? Fresh and tender?"
"Let me see him," demanded the first witch, having had enough of blind patience. She snatched the crystal eye from her sister's fingers and set it into her own forehead. A smile slid over her face. Perseus watched their movements with apparent unconcern.
"Ah, that's much better. Yes, a fine, healthy young man. Come a little closer, young visitor." Her voice was a plaintive, harmless whine.
"Yes," said the second, equally coaxing, "so that we may see you better." She took the eye from her sister.
"A fine young fellow," she whispered.
"We are honored by your visit," said the first witch in grandmotherly fashion. She let out a sigh. "We are so lonely here, so isolated. We are shunned by the ignorant, who will not even make use of our talents, and so we dwell in misery with no one else to talk to."
"What can we do to help you?" asked the third witch.
"What you might expect." Perseus had not lowered shield or sword, nor had he taken the first witch's suggestion and moved nearer. "I need your advice."
"You'll really have to come a little closer," the second witch implored him. "My sisters and I are a little deaf, you see. Especially Cycorax here, the youngest. Such a pity that she should go deaf so young—only three hundred and forty years old."
"Three hundred and thirty-eight," the third witch reminded her sharply.
Perseus took another couple of steps forward. "There," he asked loudly, "is that better now?"
The first witch shook her head. "I still can't hear him clearly, this fine young man."
"What if we moved a little closer to him?" suggested the second sister. "That would help."
"Yes, much easier, much simpler to talk to him that way," agreed the third.
They left their cauldron and its foul contents and moved down from the dais it rested upon, shuffling slowly and with mock difficulty onto the main floor. As they did so they wandered apart, as would only be natural for three sightless women. But somehow Perseus remained centered between them.
They did not think to search behind them, near the top of the mosaic pediment where Thallo and the other four officers waited with a silent metallic owl and watched quietly.
Perseus, beginning to have trouble keeping all three crones in sight, shouted, "Now!"
With an assist from Thallo the metal owl launched itself into the fetid air, screeching softly and clicking like a new clock as he climbed ceilingward.
The third witch frowned at the unusual noise but like her sisters was too overcome by the proximity of healthy young flesh to pay much attention to anything else.
Bubo banked sharply near the apex of the crumbling dome and dove downward.
"The eye," Perseus yelled as he waited for the attack, "Bubo, go for the eye!"
The original plan had called for Perseus and the owl to occupy the witches so his companions could surprise them from behind, but the owl's aerial abilities had sparked a fresh idea in the youth's mind.
Red eyes spun like a magician's pendant as the owl altered its approach in response to Perseus's order. He swooped in low and fast over the second witch. She reacted an instant too late. Her inhuman strength, which had enabled her and her sisters to overcome stronger warriors than Perseus and his companions, did not include unusual agility.
One metal talon dipped like a surgeon's knife at just the right instant and plucked the crystal orb from her hand. She snatched upward but the thief was already out of reach. A fight with Perseus was on her mind, not an attack from above.
Bubo let out a rattle of triumph as he soared low and let the eye drop. Holding his sword momentarily under his shield arm, Perseus caught the sparkling globe neatly.
Thallo and the others cheered as they scrambled down from the mosaic pediment. Bubo executed a little aerial jig and then resumed his perch on the rocks.
"The eye!" the second witch was screaming. "I've lost the eye!" She bent over and started scrabbling among the bones. "Foul trickery, sisters!" Her fury was directed at Perseus. "What have you done with the eye, stranger? Tell me, or you and your friends will become less than this!" and she lifted a rock the size of her fist and ground it to dust between her gnarled palms.
The display of strength caused Perseus to lift the eye high over his head. He stood studying it while the three evil sisters spent a few minutes contemplating a stew of a different sort than the one they'd anticipated.
Their fingers clawed frantically at the garbage carpeting the floor.
"We must have it, where is it?" babbled the second witch.
"Where?" echoed the third. "Tell us, or you will all surely die."
"You would have killed us anyway, witch," Perseus responded sharply, unimpressed by the threat.
"A rotten lie, stranger!"
"Rotten it is, but the truth. Rotten as this place and your souls. You don't frighten me with your threats, witch. Not now.
"As to the eye, never fear. It is safe . . . for the moment."
"Give it back to us now," screeched the first witch hysterically. "Give it back! Back! Back! We can't see anything without it."
"On one condition will I return it."
"Anything you ask," agreed the third witch.
"But we must have it now," added the first desperately.
"Your attitude shifts like a spring storm. No," he told them resolutely. "You'll have it back, I promise, but only after you've answered my question. I've come a long, hard way to ask it and I'm growing impatient. Hurry and decide, or an accident may befall your eye. Can you see with it if it's all in pieces?"
"Horrible, evil boy!" growled the second witch threateningly. "You would never do such a thing to thr
ee poor blind old women!"
"How many innocent travelers have you welcomed to the shelter of this place, only to slaughter them mercilessly? How many children have you devoured while their helpless parents watched and begged mercy of you, before you consumed them also?
"I know you for what you are, you three mothers of evil, so don't plead with me. Strike the bargain and have back your accursed eye, or refuse and dwell in darkness forever."
"No, no!" the first witch shouted quickly. For the first time she sounded genuinely frightened. "Ask your question then, boy, so that we may have back our sight."
"And hurry," the third witch said.
Perseus took a deep breath. "How might a mortal man face and defeat the Kraken?"
The three witches, who until now had been voluble to the point of confusion, were struck speechless.
X
"Impossible," declared the second witch, eventually breaking the silence.
"Young man of an unknown flavor," said the first witch slowly, "your question is brief and uncomplicated, and so must be our answer.
"The Kraken is invulnerable, immune to the weapons of man. You cannot fight the last of the Titans with spear and sword. His skin is like iron and his teeth can turn granite to hash. A thousand men could not bother him. He would sweep them aside with one arm and drown them in the sea."
"What about a catapult arrow fashioned from the log of a single great tree?" asked Thallo from the darkness.
"Hercules himself could heave such a weapon, only to see it bounce off the Kraken's chest, bold soldier." The witch waved a warning finger toward the source of Thallo's voice.
"You could throw a mountain at the Titan and it would only be amused. You cannot drown it. It has no animal fear of fire; its skin would protect it were the whole world burning.
"An army could not kill it," the third witch added.
"You say it's impossible," Perseus said, keeping his attention on the witches' movements as he spoke. "Nothing is impossible. Nothing is invulnerable. Zeus and the other Olympians slew the rest of the Titans."
"You are no god, boy, fighting for control of the universe."
"There must be a way."